Washington State Library (WSL) staff recently crossed the state to promote statewide library projects and services, and to network with peers.  Conferences for both the Washington Library Media Association (WLMA) and the Washington Association of Library Employees (WALE) were held last week in Spokane.  Here are some highlights from the events.

Washington Rural Heritage Initiative staffers Evan Robb and Ross Fuqua were on hand at the WALE Conference to promote the digitization efforts of small public libraries throughout Washington.  In keeping with the conference’s “Roaring Twenties” theme (celebrating 20 years of the WALE interest group), they presented historic Washington images during Wednesday night’s dessert reception.  This was followed by a performance of The Sedro-Woolley Bank Robbery, a photographic slideshow documenting a violent 1914 theft and ensuing manhunt which spread across Northwest Washington.  The audience sat at rapt attention as David Wright, librarian at Seattle Public Library, read the accompanying narrative.  This digitized set of glass lantern slides and narration (their author and photographer still unknown) will be featured in the soon-to-be published Sedro-Woolley Heritage Collection accessible through www.washingtonruralheritage.org.  The digital collection is an ongoing project of the Sedro-Woolley Public Library and Sedro-Woolley Museum.

Robb and Fuqua also staffed a Spotlight on Success table during the conference, featuring digitized resources from the Washington State Library’s collections, as well as Washington Rural Heritage participants throughout the state.

Other projects were featured at the conference including Statewide Database Licensing, Off the Page: Downloadable Audiobooks for Washington, Wayfinder: The Catalog of Washington Libraries, and Ask-WA: The Statewide Virtual Reference Cooperative, WebJunction Washington, Early Learning, Summer Reading, Early Literacy, the K-12 Library Initiative, and Supporting Student Success, Library Support Staff Certification, Transforming Life After 50 and the eBook Reader Pilot Project.

Will Stuivenga, Jeff Martin and Martha Shinners presented at both WALE and WLMA (Washington Library Media Association) conferences on current cooperative projects at WSL. Their session goal was to make sure that libraries are taking advantage of the opportunities that are available through working together with other libraries throughout the state.

At the WALE pre-conference on eBooks,  Stuivenga shared information about Off the Page: Downloadable Audiobooks for Washington and the new e-Reader pilot project.

Jennifer Fenton kept busy at WALE facilitating panels on “Certification: What’s in it for me?” about Library Support Staff Certification, “Programming with a Boom!” about the Transforming Life After 50 project and a “WebJunction Open House” showcasing free training resources for library staff throughout Washington.

For the WebJunction open house, 21 laptop computers were set up so that participants could create free WebJunction Washington accounts right away and begin registering for free courses. Laptop computers were provided by WSL and Ellensburg Public Library.

In addition to presentations, staff attended sessions at WALE and here are some comments about favorite sessions:

“The session ‘You CAN Judge a Book by Its Cover!’ with Susan Creed, Spokane Public Library’s Fiction Queen, showed how to tell what kind of story is inside a book by what is on the cover.  It was entertaining!” (Bobbie)

“The session ‘Naturalization 101’ provided very interesting information on eligibility requirements and how to obtain information on the naturalization process.  On a personal note, through this session I was able to acquire all of the necessary information for my sister-in-law from Thailand to study in order to prepare for naturalization test.” (Bobbie)

“‘Enhancing Communication between Public and Technical Services: Tag! You’re it!’  I thought it was really interesting to hear the different sides of the topic and they did a great job of having the group participate in the discussion.” (Leanna)

Everyone who was able to attend the J.A. Jance dinner event gave it glowing remarks. Jance’s sharing of her life stories and her writing journey were inspiring and moving.

And finally, the WALE conference was held at the beautiful Davenport Hotel in downtown Spokane. As Leanna says, “I really enjoyed the location.  The Davenport is a beautiful hotel and the history it has just added to the theme they choose this year.”